Poppy's Dilemma

by Nancy Carson

  ‘Oh, which one?’ Slingsby asked pointedly. ‘Poor, dear Virginia, or that little slut who used to live on the encampment at Blowers Green?’

  Incensed at the slur on Poppy, Robert grabbed Slingsby by his lapel and thrust him hard against the wall. ‘Don’t ever call that angel a slut again, Slingsby, or I swear I’ll throttle you,’ he rasped into his face. ‘She’s better than you’ll ever—’

  ‘Lads! Lads!’ Edward said with a plea in his voice. He edged himself between them, glancing anxiously in the direction of the landlord. ‘You’ll get us chucked out, brawling like drunken navvies. Behave yourselves, or you’ll have me to contend with Thursday morning.’

  ‘Maybe it’s time we went,’ William said diplomatically. ‘Any more booze and these two’ll be killing each other. Save your coppers, Slingsby. I’m off anyway when I’ve downed this. Are you coming, Edward?’

  ‘It’d be as well, yes … Robert …’ Edward offered his hand. ‘Congratulations and the very best of happiness to you and your bride tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you, Edward. I have a sneaking suspicion I shall need it.’ He turned to Slingsby. ‘Are you going too?’

  ‘I’m not staying here with you to be insulted,’ Slingsby replied sullenly.

  ‘What about you, William? You are to be my best man tomorrow.’

  ‘And I’ll be there. But I must be off too, dear chap. I have a wife and child awaiting me … and it is Christmas.’

  ‘Then I’ll stay here and get fuddled on my own.’

  ‘I thought you had to be home for dinner.’

  ‘Sod dinner. Sod home. Sod ’em all.’ He turned his back on his colleagues as they left. ‘Give me a very large whisky,’ he said awkwardly to the landlord’s wife.

  She almost filled a tumbler and Robert began drinking it as if it were a tankard of ale. The laziness of his eyelids made manifest the effects of the alcohol. He finished off the whisky and asked for another. What the hell. He felt miserable and wretched already. He needed the oblivion alcohol would very kindly bestow. As the woman filled his glass again, he felt an ice-cold blast as the door opened. A flurry of snow was blown in with four more customers.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Mister Crawford,’ Buttercup said deferentially as he sidled up to the bar where Robert was still managing to stand upright.

  Robert focused his eyes on Buttercup. ‘Oh … Mishter Buttercup … And a merry Chrishmas to you too. Let me buy you a drink, Mishter Buttercup.’

  ‘That’s generous, but there’s four o’ we.’

  ‘That’sh all right, I ain’t skint yet.’ He turned around to see who was accompanying him and saw Jericho, then Sheba, their clothes whitened with a thin covering of snow … And then he saw Poppy, a snowflake slowly melting on her long eyelashes and taking on the appearance of a tear. Their eyes met and held, and Robert wished with all his heart that he was not drunk, that he could instantly sober up and be lucid if she deigned to speak to him, for he detected no animosity.

  ‘Miss Shilk …’ His attempt at formality was rendered silly by his slurred words.

  ‘Robert,’ she said unsurely. ‘Fancy seeing you …’ She risked a half smile.

  ‘Is it shnowing?’ he asked stupidly.

  ‘Beltin’ it down,’ Buttercup replied.

  ‘Good God. What will you have to jink? It’sh Chrishmash and I want to buy you all a jink.’

  ‘He’s pickled to the gills,’ Jericho muttered to Buttercup.

  Buttercup acknowledged the obvious with a cursory nod. ‘I’ll have a whisky, thank thee, Mister Crawford.’

  ‘And you, Jericho?’

  ‘I’ll have nothing that you’re a-paying for,’ Jericho said, and received a kick on his shins from Poppy.

  ‘That’sh your choish, Jericho,’ Robert replied with a lazy shrug. ‘Sheba? I mean Mishish Shilk.’

  ‘A glass of beer would be very nice, thank you.’

  Robert smiled exaggeratedly. ‘Beer it ish …’ He turned to Poppy again who was loosening her mantle at her throat. ‘Mish Shilk … What can I get you?’

  ‘Leave her be,’ Jericho rasped. ‘She wants nought from you.’

  Robert frowned at Jericho, angered by his unreasonable attitude. ‘Perhapsh that desh … deshish … deshishion should be left to Mish Shilk … eh, Mish Shilk? What would you like to jink?’

  ‘I’ll just have some soda water, please, Robert.’

  ‘Very well …’ He noticed that she was wearing a locket in the shape of a heart and was confused as to what conclusion he should draw from it. ‘I’m drunk, you know, Poppy …’

  The landlord’s wife eyed Robert warily as he called for the drinks. She had seen this young man getting more inebriated by the minute. She had already witnessed his cross words and threatening behaviour with one of his companions earlier, and now he was mixing with folk who, according to their mode of dress and the older woman’s quaint hairstyle, were navvies from that new encampment. If they weren’t careful, all the damned navvies from that godforsaken site would be descending regularly on their orderly house, earning it a bad reputation.

  Robert handed the drinks round as he received them. ‘Are you sure I can’t tempt you?’ he said again to Jericho.

  ‘I’ll buy my own beer.’

  ‘Leave it,’ Buttercup said in an aside to Jericho. ‘He wants to buy you a drink. Be sociable. It’s Christmas.’

  ‘Nay, I’ll have no drink off him. He reckoned Poppy was a street wench.’

  Robert shook his head solemnly, uselessly, for he could not readily form the words to reply.

  ‘Well now,’ Jericho went on, eyeing Robert maliciously. ‘It’s true, ain’t it, Mister Crawford? She was a street wench, wasn’t she, according to you? Well, she must’ve been, she’s had the clap three times, and now she reckons she’s got the pox.’ Poppy nudged him agitatedly. ‘It must have showed up in you by now, Mister Crawford.’

  ‘You have a foul mouth,’ Robert managed to utter.

  ‘And you have a foul mind, Mister Crawford. Don’t you believe she’s got the pox?’

  ‘Of courshe I don’t.’

  ‘Pity. Maybe you should consider it when you’m pokin’ your new bride tomorrow. You wouldn’t want to pass anything on to your new bride on her wedding night, would you?’

  While Poppy looked aghast at the depths Jericho could trawl in his venom, Robert tried to rally himself, trying to shake off the slough of inertia and haziness and stupidity that was impeding his mind and his body. It was as if he was not a part of all this, as if he was watching some sinister act in a bizarre play, its outcome preordained.

  ‘I ought to thrash you,’ Robert hissed.

  Jericho guffawed, a mocking, sneering laugh.

  Robert lurched forward in an attempt to grab Jericho. ‘How dare you say such vile things about Poppy?’ He stumbled to the floor in a heap, and struggled to get up, while Jericho held him down.

  ‘Leave him be, Jericho,’ Buttercup implored. ‘He’s down. He’s fuddled. Leave him be.’

  ‘Aye, he’s fuddled all right.’ Jericho stooped down over Robert, clutched the lapels of his jacket and lifted him so that their faces were only inches apart. ‘Think you’m man enough to fight me, do yer?’ he goaded, his face ugly with hate. ‘Man indeed! What sort of a man would cast aside a young woman who was a-carryin’ his child, eh? Tell me that, Mister Crawford.’

  Poppy knelt down beside them both, desperately trying to intervene, trying to shove Jericho away. ‘Leave him be, Jericho, and shut your damned mouth,’ she shrieked, her tutoring and respectability leaving her in these anxious moments. She felt so sorry for Robert. To see him thus afflicted was an unpalatable blow to his dignity. ‘Hurt him, Jericho, and I’ll never speak to you again.’

  Jericho ignored her, shoving her aside as his temper got the better of him. ‘Did yer know as Poppy was carrying your babby?’ he hissed. ‘Well? Did yer?’

  Robert shook his head stupidly, only half-aware of what was going on.

  ‘No, she
reckons you don’t know, but I wager you do. Course yer do.’

  ‘Jericho!’ Poppy screamed. ‘Will you shut your vile mouth and leave him be!’

  ‘Any road, what does it matter?’ Jericho ranted. ‘She’s scum, ain’t she? The scrapings from the bottom o’ the barrel, that’s all she is. But you …’ He spat in Robert’s face. ‘You’m like all o’ your class. You tek what you want then shit on it. Well, I’ll wait, Mister Crawford …’ He let go and Robert slumped to the floor. ‘I’ll wait till you’m sober afore I fight yer, just to mek it fair.’

  Poppy knelt alongside Robert and cradled his head in her arms. ‘Robert, Robert,’ she whimpered, as her tears fell onto his face and into his hair. ‘Oh, Robert …’

  The landlord was upon them. ‘I want you all out. You’m all troublemakers. The lot o’ ye. The minute you lot come in here, I could smell trouble. Get out of here. And I never want to see any of you in my house again.’

  Robert struggled to his feet, helped by Poppy, and comically went through the motions of dusting himself off. Buttercup, Jericho and Sheba looked on, while Poppy was stupefied by the swiftness with which all this had happened.

  ‘Does he have a mantle or summat?’ Sheba asked. ‘He’ll catch his death.’

  ‘Here,’ the landlord said, picking up Robert’s greatcoat. ‘Get him out of here.’

  Buttercup took it and wrapped it around Robert’s shoulders as he led him outside. ‘Come on, lad,’ he said kindly.

  ‘That’s his horse and gig,’ Poppy said, pointing to the combination standing at the kerb. ‘But he can’t drive back to Dudley in his state.’

  ‘He’ll have to,’ Buttercup answered. ‘Mebbe the hoss knows the road. He’ll have bin up and down it enough times be now.’

  Poppy rushed to the gig and, with tears in her eyes, made sure he had hold of the reins. ‘Goodbye, Robert,’ she wailed, for if she ever cast eyes on him again, she would be looking at a married man. ‘Remember me …’

  Chapter 35

  Poppy watched with tears in her eyes as Robert and his gig headed towards Dudley and his irrevocable marriage tomorrow. Soon, he became invisible, lost in the haze of pure white feathers that floated silently down and glittered in the lamplight and lanterns of The Old Crown and other inns and houses. She walked homeward, lagging behind the others, and with disinterest shrugged off Jericho’s arm, which was offered as support in case she slipped.

  Although tomorrow was a holiday, many furnaces and kilns worked still, their orange glow more noticeable than usual against the cold uniformity of untouched snow. The heavy charcoal sky flared with tongues of flame that leapt over the larger furnaces, while palls of smoke still spewed from the myriad red-brick chimney stacks, as if in the midst of a conflagration.

  After his rebuff, Jericho walked on ahead with Buttercup, his head down against the driving snow, his collar up, his shoulders hunched to ward off the cold. Sheba waited a few seconds for Poppy to catch up, then took her daughter’s gloved hand caringly.

  ‘It’s upset yer seeing him again,’ she said, her voice soft with tenderness.

  ‘It’s upset me seeing him lose all his dignity through drink,’ Poppy snivelled. ‘He seldom drinks.’

  ‘Well, it’s Christmas. He’s entitled to a drink.’

  ‘Christmas or not, he wouldn’t get drunk like that, Mother. I know him. He’s unhappy. I know he’s unhappy. And Jericho didn’t help, wanting to fight him. How stupid! I thought he’d grown up.’

  ‘Jericho’s Jericho,’ Sheba proclaimed.

  ‘But I thought he’d grown out of it. He seemed to have settled down …’

  ‘He’ll never grow out of fighting. And just be glad you ain’t had nothing to do with him, ’cause he wouldn’t be past clouting you either. He’s got a vile temper … And listen, that Robert’s nothing to do with you any more, our Poppy. It’d pay you to stop grieving over him. This time tomorrow he’ll be a married man.’

  They trudged on, the hems of their skirts soaking up the wet as they brushed across the fresh snow.

  Buttercup stopped and turned round to face them. ‘Me and Jericho am off to The Red Lion. It’s no place for women, so we’ll see thee later.’

  Soon Poppy and Sheba were within sight of the encampment. The children were still out playing, relishing the novelty of the first snowfall of winter, throwing snowballs at each other in the darkness from between the huts, rushing about and giggling. The two women entered the hut, and the heat from the stove was welcoming.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ Poppy said miserably, taking off her bonnet while Sheba lit a lamp. ‘I need to have a good cry … on my own.’

  ‘Have a nip o’ whisky afore you go. It’ll help you sleep.’

  Poppy took off her mantle, shook off the adhering snow, and hung it on a nail in the door. ‘All right. I’ll take it to bed with me.’

  Sheba took a bottle from a shelf above her and poured a good measure into a glass. ‘Here … Don’t spill it.’

  ‘Thanks, Mother. And don’t expect me to get up early. I don’t want to even see the day that he gets married on.’

  Alone for once in this spartan family bedroom, Poppy shivered. She undressed, put on her nightgown and slipped into the cold bed. She propped herself up on the pillows and shivered again as she watched her breath turning to steam. She sipped her whisky held cupped in both hands, her mind full of the disturbing events in The Old Crown. Poor Robert. If only she could have helped him. It was not in her nature to hold a grudge. She still loved him and she was resigned to the fact that she always would. But now she was powerless to do anything. If he was miserable it was of his own making. He had chosen his future path, not she. But it had hurt her to witness him, a man of culture and high self-esteem, stripped of his pride yet oblivious to his lamentable state because of too much drink. He was like some pig-ignorant navvy bent on self-destruction. It might even have been best if she’d never seen him again, allowed to remember him the way he always was, kind, considerate, dignified … and sober. Now, even her memory of him was tainted.

  She finished her nightcap, snuggled down under the blankets and drifted into sleep. Before long, she was awakened by her sisters and brothers boisterously getting into bed. Lottie’s cold feet and her cold body were a shock to Poppy’s warm skin. Their chatter and giggles kept her awake, but she could not be angry with them. If only she felt as happy herself.

  Morning came and the bedroom was filled with the ghostly white light that only a covering of snow outside can bring. On the window a film of ice had formed, intricately patterned with ferns, flowers and crystal stars. Poppy turned over and pulled the blankets higher around her neck to keep out the bitter cold. Today was the day she had dreaded more than any other day in her life: the day Robert would be wed. Well, by now she had accepted the fact, but it still hurt. Yet how soon it had rolled round. It seemed like only yesterday that she had learnt it was to take place on this very day, this Christmas Day …

  She recalled last Christmas with Aunt Phoebe … The preparation, making cakes and mince pies, plum pudding and pork pies with Dolly, enough to feed an army, Clay brewing ale. She recalled helping Dolly – or rather Dolly helping her – to feather and draw a goose, laughing and joking while they did it. She should be helping her mother do the same with the specimen Buttercup had acquired yesterday. Last Christmas she had eaten too much, and so had Aunt Phoebe who suffered the indignity of indigestion and had to slacken off her stays. They’d laughed together at that, she and Aunt Phoebe. Carol singers had also arrived and were rewarded with bags full of the cakes and mince pies, as well as a nip of whisky or brandy each, according to their taste. Well, there would not be quite the same joviality here in this navvy encampment. Not for Poppy at any rate …

  Virginia Lord … What would she be doing now? She’d be on tenterhooks, almost certainly, doing some last minute worrying that everything was ready and in order. Poppy imagined her soaking in a hot bath in her bedroom, making herself sweet smelling and pristine
for her initiation with Robert tonight. That notion horrified Poppy; Robert and Virginia in bed together. It did not occur to Poppy that in bed with Robert, Virginia would not be like her. It did not occur to her that Virginia was shackled by her religious beliefs and a deep-seated fear and repugnance of sexual intimacy. Circumstance had not bestowed on Virginia the gift of being uninhibited and willingly giving herself. Poppy had never considered that well-bred girls were expected to behave differently to her in that respect. She suspected that not all were prim and pure in thought and deed, especially in the privacy of their beds where they could think and do as they pleased. She tried to imagine Virginia in her bridal gown, statuesque as she clung to a posy of flowers imported just for the occasion. She thought of the carriage that would convey her to church, bedecked with more flowers and white ribbons …

  Lottie awoke and sat bolt upright. ‘I want to see if the snow’s still here.’

  ‘The snow’s still here, Lottie. Go back to sleep.’

  But Lottie insisted on clambering across several of her siblings, waking them all up. She rubbed the frost off the inside of a window pane, took off her nightgown hurriedly, shivered, dressed, then ran outside, followed by the others, who were just as anxious to play in the snow. Buttercup snored, disturbing Sheba who stirred and poked him in the ribs in an attempt to get him to turn over. Again, Poppy snuggled under the blankets and returned to thoughts of Robert Crawford and his wedding day.

  His wedding day.

  Virginia’s wedding day.

  It could have been her own wedding day.

  If only Virginia had not acquired the wild notion that she was a whore and revealed that she was a navvy’s daughter. Prior to that, Poppy had been so close to becoming Robert Crawford’s wife. His father had given him his blessing to marry her once the overdraft facility with Tyler’s and Lord’s had been secured. His mother’s blessing would naturally have followed, albeit with some reluctance. But it would have followed. Damn Virginia! Virginia had not played fair at all.